It is Saturday, the morning of the first annual Dog Shit Awareness Day in the little park over the road. I'm avoiding the knot of police officers and do-gooders huddled under a tent in the rain, because I rashly signed up to pull a shift as a do-gooder.

Fortunately my wife, in her role as the newly elected chairman of the Friends of the Little Park Over the Road, has ordered me to stay at home and cook lunch while she spray-paints every turd in the park fluorescent yellow. This affords me the peace and quiet I need to fret about my evening plans.

A few days earlier I was invited to make a brief guest appearance in a stage show about the US elections. I immediately said yes, because I worry that if I only ever listen to the voice in my head that screams, "Don't do it!" I'll spend the rest of my life sitting at my desk being stared at by two dogs. But now, with hours to go and my guts already churning in anticipation, I'm beginning to regret this self-betrayal.

My wife returns with her spray can in the early afternoon. "I guess I'll leave here about 6," she says.

"OK," I say. "To go where?"

"I told you this." She is, she says, taking the oldest one to the theatre.

"What about the other two?" I say.

"Why?" she says. "Where are you going?"

"I told you this," I say. I do not wish to give the impression that we have frequent scheduling conflicts of a theatrical nature. Like the Dog Shit Awareness Day, it's a first.

"I'll just bring them along," I say. "It should be fine."

My email requesting permission to bring two minors to a late-night comedy show is not met with an entirely affirmative response. The venue, I'm told, is 16-plus. "There are a few bits that are mildly pornographic," the host writes, "and some gay humour, but that's pretty much it." I write back saying it sounds exactly my children's sort of thing, but I don't receive a reply before we leave the house.

On the way to the theatre, I have to pull them into an alley to yell at them for fighting.

"You're underage!" I shout. "You can't be badly behaved as well!"

We arrive before the house opens and are seated at a table from where I am to be plucked, midway through the show, to sit on stage. As the audience drifts in, my stomach starts twisting itself into balloon animals.

"Can I have another Coke?" the middle one asks.

"No," I say.

"They're free," he says. "I can just go get one."

"That's not the point," I say. "You've already had…"

"It's filling up," the youngest says. "Are you getting nerrrrrvous?"

"Shut up," I say.

My contribution to the mildly pornographic show shoots past in a queasy blur. Afterwards, we have more free drinks at the bar while chatting to comedian Rich Fulcher, better known to the world as Bob Fossil from the Mighty Boosh.

"This is what it's like to have a cool dad," I tell my children. "But if Mum asks, we should probably just say we stayed in to watch The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo."

My phone rings. "Did you bring them?" my wife asks. "How did it go?"

"I don't remember," I say. "You'll have to ask someone else." Raising one stern eyebrow, I hand the phone to the middle one.

"Hi," he says. "Yup. Yes. Yes. No. Kay." He hands the phone back to me.